Opened in 1942 and closed 70 years later, the Cedar Branch YMCA at East 77nd Street was a safe and welcoming place for young African-American men. It could be that again, led by Nigerian immigrant and real estate development James Sosan who is seeking to give back to his adopted hometown (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Building to be restored as east-side beacon
ARTICLE UPDATED NOV. 27, 2024
On this Thanksgiving, we’re reminded that there was a place on the city’s East Side that was once a source of thanks and appreciation to young African-American men for 70 Thanksgivings. That place was the Cedar Branch YMCA that helped young men gain a foothold to start climbing in the community. It could be that again for future Thanksgivings after it is renovated as a mixed-use project thanks to plans and financing that are now coming together.
Plans were submitted today to the city of Cleveland’s Building Department for the African Town Plaza — a renovation of the vacant, 1942-built Cedar Branch YMCA, 7515 Cedar Ave., by real estate developer James Sosan, a Nigerian immigrant. Value of the investment in reactivating the 82-year-old, 47,816-square-foot building is estimated at $5 million, according to the newly submitted construction permit application.
“Conversion of an existing historical building to apartments, business offices and an event space” will be the end-product of the application, wrote Joseph Myers, architect and owner of Myers Architects of Willoughby in submitting plans and other documents to the city. The project is located in Cleveland’s Fairfax neighborhood.
Specific programming for the building includes 10 leasable offices in the basement and first floor with two of the basement offices having a two-story high ceiling. They will be built where a former swimming pool was. Above that on the second floor is an athletic court-turned-event space for weddings, parties, live performances and meetings which also has a two-story high ceiling.
A rendering of the former Cedar Branch YMCA following its planned $5 million renovation and conversion into the African Town Plaza mixed-use development (Myers).
There will also be a multimedia studio and a commercial kitchen so the site can serve as a business incubator. Surrounding the event space will be 19 apartments on the second and third floors, plans show. Future phases could include adding steel shipping containers to a neighboring property to create a retail plaza for new businesses.
Sosan bought the Cedar Branch YMCA almost exactly one year ago through a Twinsburg-based affiliate of his called JSAACC LLC. Because the building was vacant for 12 years, Sosan was able to acquire it for only $225,000, according to Cuyahoga County property records. Since then, he’s been busy securing financing from public and private sources.
On Nov. 8, the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency’s (NOACA) Finance and Audit Committee recommended that the NOACA Board of Directors approve a loan of up to $226,896 from the NOACA-Vibrant NEO Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund to JSAACC, LLC for asbestos remediation at the African Town Plaza site.
That approval could come as early as Dec. 13. If awarded and the project is built, Sosan estimates that it could result in the creation of 45 temporary jobs at $24 per hour and 25 permanent jobs at $35 per hour, according to documents presented at the Audit Committee meeting.
The basement and entry-level plans for the African Town Plaza that were submitted today to Cleveland’s Building Department as part of a request for a construction permit. They show 10 proposed leasable office spaces including two at the north side of the building where the swimming pool used to be. Those two offices would extend up from the basement into the first floor (Myers).
The loan amount may turn out to be smaller than requested if the project wins a requested Ohio Department of Development Brownfield Remediation Program grant. If it does, a smaller loan would serve as a 25 percent match for the grant. Actual disbursements will be made as documentation of eligible expenses is provided to NOACA, according to Audit Committee documents.
For a separate project by Sosan’s JSAACC, LLC, the Cuyahoga Land Bank is also seeking $208,000 from the NOACA-Vibrant NEO Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund to reactivate a former industrial site at 8920 Laisy Ave., one block north of Union Avenue in Cleveland’s Kinsman neighborhood. Sosan says he will build a plant for an unidentified manufacturer that would offer 65 temporary jobs and 100 permanent jobs paying about $20 per hour.
The loan would help pay for sub-surface remediation of hazardous substances and closure and removal of petroleum underground storage tanks at the site that’s been vacant for more than 25 years. The 11.75-acre, Cuyahoga Land Bank-owned property was previously used as an aluminum foundry with the rest used for the storage of buses, according to NOACA.
In April, the Cleveland Development Advisors (CDA) closed on a $300,000 loan for predevelopment costs associated with the African Town Plaza project. The loan came from the U.S. Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund Financial Assistance program, which is intended to help low-income areas. It is part of the Access to Capital Predevelopment and Acquisition Loan Pool targeted to emerging and underserved developers.
The second- and third-floor plans for the African Town Plaza redevelopment of the Cedar Branch YMCA. The south, east and west sides of the building will have 19 apartments while the north end will have a second-floor event space — a former basketball court — that extends up into the third floor space (Myers).
Sosan has experience in redeveloping historic structures including the Metro Lofts in Tremont, the Detroit Lofts in Ohio City and transforming the former West Side YMCA into apartments. Sosan is also a mentor in CDA’s Cleveland Equitable Development Initiative (CLE-EDI) program which launched in 2023 and is aimed at bolstering the ranks of successful minority real estate developers in the region.
“When complete, it is envisioned that African Town Plaza will be a key gathering place and cultural touchstone for the Fairfax neighborhood, and we are happy to be working with James to help him kick start the project,” said CDA President & CEO Yvette Ittu in a written statement. “We are excited that this project will also include 20 much-needed apartments, with 10 of them being designated as affordable housing, a welcome addition to the neighborhood.”
Opened in 1942 and closed 70 years later, the Cedar Branch YMCA was a safe and welcoming place for African-American men who were often excluded from other YMCA branches in Cleveland. It was listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book that was published from 1936 to 1966 to help travelers avoid the insults and sometimes violence of Jim Crow-era hotels, restaurants, theaters, parks and gas stations that discriminated against nonwhites.
Among those who guided Cleveland’s youth at the Cedar Branch was Frank “Doc” Kelker, an All-American football player at Western Reserve University in the 1930s. He began to work for the Cedar Branch YMCA after World War II where a future congressman and a future mayor often came into the building.
A 1952 postcard on the back of which read: “Cedar Branch YMCA located on Cedar Avenue at East 77 Street is a modern brick structure. Providing resident units, recreational programs, artcraft, camping, dancing and co-ed swimming, the ‘Y’ is a center of activity for the Negro youth of the community and those living in the permanent residence quarters” (DigitalCommonwealth).
“Doc was the longtime executive secretary of the Cedar Avenue Branch, where the brothers Louis and Carl Stokes were among the youths he mentored,” noted this biography of Kelker. “By the time he retired in 1981, he oversaw all of Cleveland’s urban branches.”
The 1942-built structure was actually the second Cedar Branch YMCA to occupy this site. The first was built in 1879 for the Lend-a-Hand Mission which leased and then sold the property to the YMCA in the early 1920s. Although it was also three stories tall like its successor, it was much smaller in terms of square feet and a larger facility was needed for the growing city. The YMCA sold the Cedar Branch in 1987 to Temple Baptist Church.
The site is just one block south of Carnegie Avenue where a lot of development and business activity has been happening lately. In fact, the former Cedar Branch YMCA is immediately south of the the fast-growing Cleveland Kitchen as well as The Foundy Lofts that added 242 apartments to the neighborhood and quickly leased them out.
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